Two weeks after since they filled a Paris warehouse with a several hundred strong choir singing Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation”, Kenzo have debuted their latest project: a short film titled Snowbird by American director Sean Baker.
The film comes in the wake of Baker’s critically-acclaimed Tangerine (hailed as one of the most important films of 2015), which follows the story of a trans sex worker who finds out that her boyfriend and pimp has been cheating on her. Like Tangerine, Snowbird was shot solely on an iPhone 6S equipped with a clip-on lens and an $8 app for its cinematography.
Out today, the short takes inspiration from (and is named after) a community that flees the freezing climates of Canada and northern USA, migrating to more temperate locations. Australian model and Mad Max: Fury Road actress Abbey Lee Kershaw is cast not only as the star of the film – playing the role of a woman called Young Theo – but also as the face of Kenzo’s accompanying campaign.
“Abbey reached out to me, which was really cool,” says Baker. “She was a huge fan of Tangerine. She saw it twice in the theatre. Then within just a couple of weeks, after I conversed briefly with her via email, the Kenzo opportunity came up. It seemed like the perfect marriage.”
Fostering a close relationship with popular culture, this isn’t the first time Kenzo have collaborated with a celebrated director. Last season, the brand enlisted The Doom Generation’s Gregg Araki to produce a short film titled Here Now.
Watch the film below:
